VALLETTA: Turkey under President Tayyip Erdogan has turned its back on joining the European Union, at least for now, the bloc’s top official dealing with Ankara said, offering economic cooperation instead if both sides can restore friendly ties.
After years of stalemate on Turkey’s bid to join the world’s biggest trading bloc, EU governments say the process is dead, citing Erdogan’s crackdown on dissidents, his ‘Nazi’ jibes at Germany and a referendum giving him sweeping new powers that a rights group says lack checks and balances.
“Everybody’s clear that, currently at least, Turkey is moving away from a European perspective,” European Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who oversees EU membership bids, told Reuters.
“The focus of our relationship has to be something else,” he said in an interview after EU foreign ministers met in Malta and where France and Germany led efforts to consider a new deal with Ankara based on trade and security ties.
“We have to see what could be done in the future, to see if we can restart some kind of cooperation,” Hahn said on Saturday, saying that he had not had meetings on the economy with NATO-member Turkey since January last year, normally a fixture of accession talks.
The EU process is not formally frozen, but EU lawmakers called last week for a formal halt to talks, with some saying Turkey no longer met the democratic criteria to be considered a candidate, let alone a full member, for the EU.
Erdogan told Reuters in an interview last week that Turkey would not wait at Europe’s door forever and would walk away from accession talks if what he said was rising Islamophobia and hostility from some member states persist.
Launched in 2005 after decades of seeking the formal start of an EU membership bid, negotiations dovetailed with Erdogan’s first economic reforms in power as prime minister from 2003.
EU officials say Turkish reforms to enter the EU brought stability and attracted foreign investment, making Turkey an important emerging economy with high-speed trains crossing the strategically-located country bridging Europe and Asia.
That economic success remains part of Erdogan’s popularity with the pious Turkish poor, who saw living standards rise, although Hahn noted the worsening state of Turkey’s economy now.
The European Union is Turkey’s biggest foreign investor and biggest trading partner, while Turkey shares a border with Iraq, Syria and with Russia in the Black Sea.
WHO’S TO BLAME?
Hahn said he would present a report by early next year to EU governments to clarify Turkey’s status. The lack of urgency shows the reluctance of EU states to upset Ankara, given that they rely on Turkey to keep migrants from coming to Europe, diplomats said.
But Hahn said that limits on with press freedoms, mass jailing and shrinking civil rights made it almost impossible at the present time for Turkey to meet EU joining criteria.
Hahn said EU rules “were not negotiable” and the bloc would not “decouple the human rights situation” from discussions.
“There is no version of Turkish democracy. There is only democracy. Turkish people have the same rights to live in freedom as Europeans do,” said Hahn, whose delegation in Turkey has visited dissidents in prison.
A slim majority of 51.4 percent of Turkish voters voted in April to grant the president sweeping new powers, the biggest overhaul of the country’s politics since the founding of the modern republic, amid opposition accusations of vote fraud.
Asked if the European Union was partly responsible for Turkey’s turn toward a more centralized system, Hahn said the drive to change had come from inside the country.
“Nobody can claim to be blameless, but it is always the sovereign decision of a country (to decide policy) ... If you have a certain vision in mind, it is difficult to intervene in a meaningful way,” Hahn said.
“All these reform efforts are not done for the European Union but for the sake of (Turkish) citizens,” Hahn said, referring to the process that helped transform former communist countries in central and eastern Europe into thriving market democracies as they sought to join the European Union.
“This is not about serving the Europeans,” he said.
Turkey’s EU dream is over, for now, top official says
Turkey’s EU dream is over, for now, top official says
Lebanese army says soldier killed by Israeli fire
- South Lebanon and the capital have seen heavy strikes in recent days
BEIRUT: The Lebanese army said Israeli fire killed a soldier on Wednesday, a day after it said three other personnel died in a strike on their position in south Lebanon.
South Lebanon has seen intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants whose group holds sway in the area.
A soldier “died of his wounds sustained due to the Israel army targeting of an army vehicle” in south Lebanon, a statement on X said, after reporting two personnel wounded in the incident near Qlayaa in south Lebanon.
On Tuesday, the military said three soldiers were killed when “the Israeli enemy targeted an army position in the town of Sarafand,” where the health ministry said eight people were wounded.
AFP images showed destruction at the site in Sarafand on the Mediterranean coast, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the southern border, with a concrete structure destroyed and a vehicle among the debris.
Israel army says hit over 100 ‘terror targets’ in past day
The Israeli military on Wednesday said it struck more than 100 “terror targets” in Lebanon over the past day and had “eliminated” two Hezbollah commanders at the weekend.
The targets included “launchers, weapons storage facilities, command centers, and military structures,” the army said in a statement.
The announcement came as US envoy Amos Hochstein was in Lebanon, seeking to hammer out a truce between Israel and Hezbollah.
The military also said “on Sunday, the (air force) eliminated the commanders of Hezbollah’s anti-tank missile and operations unit in the coastal sector” who were “responsible for terror attacks against Israeli civilians.”
The army added that its troops continued to conduct “limited, localized, targeted raids” in southern Lebanon.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops, after almost a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
South Lebanon and the capital have seen heavy strikes in recent days, though the situation was calmer in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, with US envoy Amos Hochstein visiting for truce talks.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Israeli shelling and air strikes in south Lebanon overnight and on Wednesday, saying Israeli troops were seeking to advance further near the town of Khiam.
Hezbollah on Tuesday said it had attacked Israeli troops near the flashpoint border town.
The NNA also said that Israel forces were “attempting to advance from the Kfarshuba hills... to open up a new front under the cover of fire and artillery shells and air strikes.”
“Violent clashes are taking place” between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, it added.
Hezbollah said it carried out several attacks on Israeli troops near the border Wednesday.
Syria war monitor says 4 fighters dead in Israeli attack on Palmyra
- State news agency SANA said an “Israeli attack... targeted residential buildings and the industrial area”
Beirut: A war monitor said Israeli strikes on central Syria’s Palmyra on Wednesday killed four pro-Iran fighters, while Syrian state media reported an unspecified number of wounded in the attack.
“Four non-Syrian fighters from pro-Iran groups were killed and six others including civilians were wounded in a provisional toll of the Israeli strikes” on Palmyra, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The strikes targeted “a warehouse in the industrial area and a restaurant and buildings near the ancient city of Palmyra,” the Britain-based Observatory added.
State news agency SANA said an “Israeli attack... targeted residential buildings and the industrial area” of the city, renowned for its ancient ruins.
State television reported unspecified “wounded due to the Israeli attack that targeted the city of Palmyra.”
Since the civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed armed groups, including Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes since almost a year of hostilities with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into all-out war in late September.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence there.
Erdogan says Turkiye prepared if US withdraws from Syria
ISTANBUL: President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkiye is prepared if the United States decides to withdraw troops from northern Syria, broadcaster CNN Turk and other media cited him as saying on Wednesday.
In an interview with reporters on his way back from the G20 summit in Brazil, Erdogan said Turkiye’s security is paramount and it is holding talks with Russia on the issue of Syria.
40 killed in central Sudan paramilitary attack on village
PORT SUDAN: A medic on Wednesday said 40 people were killed “by gunshot wounds” during a paramilitary attack on the Sudanese village of Wad Oshaib in the central state of Al-Jazira.
Eyewitnesses in the village told AFP the Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023, attacked the village on Tuesday evening. “The attack resumed this morning,” one eyewitness said by phone Wednesday, adding that paramilitary fighters were “looting property.”
